Sheep to Shawl - 2010

This will be the second year students from Capilano University - Textile Arts program will be participating in the "Sheep to Shawl". This is a yearly event for the guilds of Greater Vancouver to compete against each one another to make the best shawl, by hand of course.

Blurb:

Cheer on local spinners and weavers as they participate in this traditional competition. Watch as they card, spin, and ply raw sheep’s wool into yarn, then weave a shawl - all in four hours! See demonstrations of sheep shearing, view wool displays, and try weaving on heritage looms or spinning on real spinning wheels. Kids can try weaving, or make sheep crafts and pictures while they watch the show.

Saturday, May 22, 2010
11:00am-4:00pm
All ages
By Donation

Entrance to exhibit gallery by admission fee.

at Surrey Museum
17710 - 56A Avenue
For information, call 604-592-6956

Jacquard Weaving

The jacquard loom was invented in the early 1800's controlled by punch cards. It was used as an example for the first computer. Today's jacquard looms are now controlled by computers. You load an image (which has been edited on photoshop) on to the jacquard software and the loom will weave that picture for you.

One of the tech's at school has a jacquard loom and we were lucky enough to weave on it this semester. I chose to do an anatomical heart. I just have some progress shots so far, but they are still really interesting.


At the top of the picture you can see the heart starting to show in the weaving. All of the threads on the left are controlled individually by the computer. (you can see the heddles, where the threads are attached to the computer, in the next picture)


In the above picture, all of the vertical metal pieces (behind the two girls) are heddles which are about 1/4" thick and are threaded with yarn one by one to control the pattern. As you press the foot peddle the computer tells the jacquard loom which ones to lift up to create the pattern. The operator, ie. the weaver, then "throws" a bobbin of yarn through the lifted yarn to weave the cloth.

(a lot to explain in such a little post, I hope it's coming across alright)

Spinning Saturday - March 13, 2010

"The Little Mermaid"
143 yards
Merino, corriedale, wool, firestar

"Sherbert"
16 yards
Wensleydale

Both these yarns were spun for a swap on Craftster, in exchange for some hand made gifts. I have not yet received them, but they are in the mail on their way here. I'm very excited.

Spinning Saturday?

I made this yarn.. (last week.. shh.. hehe) and I thought I would share it with you. (I've made 2 more but they are for a swap on Craftster, so I can't post just yet)

(no name, yet)
114yards
Llama and Bamboo blend

The llama (brown) was cleaned, carded and spun by yours truly. I must admit, I do enjoy processing fleece right from the animal as opposed to buying roving. It makes it feel MORE hand spun.. hehe

There is nothing more satisfying than...

...finishing a project you started 2 years ago.
This was originally going to be a baby blanket, but .. as you read in the first line, it's a little too late. So, it has now turned into a bath mat. I found this pattern easy to follow, but just to tedious to continue for a whole blanket, even if it was in miniature size. The bath mat is knit with Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in a natural color. (hard to tell in the pictures, sorry) It measures 28" x 16.5"

Checkerboard Rug - in progress

I'm weaving a rug for a project at school. I took some in progress shots today. I'm very excited for this to be finished but it's taking forEVER! It's due Wednesday, but most likely won't be done in time. Anyways, on to the pics!
The shag will be cut down to about half it's length. Each knot, that you can see in the above photo, has 2 pieces of yarn, and is 4 wide, and 8 high. This makes for approx. 64 pieces of yarn per square. Each row has 10 (I think lol) shag squares, that's a whole lot of yarn! hehe So, needless to say, it's taking me a lot longer than I thought it would have.

I'll post pictures of the rug when it's completely finished.

New Yarn: "Cake"

So, this yarn does not have a name yet, but it is inspired by Sofia Coppolla's movie "Marie Antoinette". If you haven't seen the movie, it's wonderful. A bit of a slow start but a very fun movie. If you like the story of Marie Antoinette throw all your preconceived notions out the door, this movie is more about her life turning into the queen.

But enough about the movie, this yarn was spun from fabric that I hand dyed myself last year in my surface design class. All of the fabric was ripped into 1" strips, spun and then plied with cotton yarn. The second picture is more true to color.

*Edit: I've decided on a name for this yarn: "Cake". The name is inspired by the famous saying "Let them eat cake", also, because this yarn is made from scrap fabric, and Marie Antoinette gave her "scraps" to the people of France. More or less. The colors are also very colorful like most cakes.

Update: 50 list

I finished 2 projects last week. Or was it the week before? The days are starting to blend together now that I'm back at school. Anyways. Here's what you've been waiting for. The pictures!
First on the table is felted soap. This is only my second time trying this, and it's a lot tougher than it would seem. The felt just slides all over the place. I think they turned out alright, but I think I need more practice before I offer them as gifts or put them on my etsy shop.Second is a lovely bunch of christmas tags cut from Christmas cards I received this year. My favorite ones are the trees and snowmen. Mostly because they are sparkly!

If you haven't seen the full list of projects check it out here.

Updating the 50 list

I've thought of a few more things to add to the list:

38. bow head band
39. feather hair clip
40. thrum mittens
41. 4 bars of felted soap
42. tshirt pants

Purple Cowl

Or something like it.
The picture is not the best, I'll try and get a new one, but in the mean time, here is my first finished project for 2010!
See the full list of 50 projects here. And a link to the pattern here.